Bees pollinate one-third of all the food eaten (1). However, bees are in crisis. They are dying off at record rates from Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) (2). Millions of dollars of research has gone into this problem of why 30% of the nation's bees are dying off each winter. In the most recent official report, the USDA found no clear cause to the problem, although they listed several factors that may be contributing to the problem (3). These die offs are very sudden as well. Beekeepers can check their hive one day and find their bees healthy, and the next week they find all of them are dead.
This problem could have devastating effects on the nation's food supply. The average die off rate for bees over the past seven years has been approximately 29% (4). This is much higher than 10-15%, which is considered the sustainable loss percentage (5). An insufficient number of bees would result in a loss of crop due to inadequate pollination. Most crops are only partially reliant on bees, and the reduction of colonies will not be catastrophic to the crop but will cause reduction of yield. However, some crops such as almonds are entirely dependent on bee pollination. In fact 60% of the nation's bees are trucked into central California for a short two-week pollination period (6). This means that if there aren't enough bees, almond trees will not be pollinated and almond production will drop. Because of the sudden nature of CCD, some beekeepers found out that their bees had died and they wouldn't be able to keep their bee contracts shortly before the pollination season. This heightens the fears and risks of the almond farmers. Clearly, this is a large problem that could affect the nation's food supply. However, it is bigger than the United States of America. The entire world is struggling with CCD. Therefore, the worldwide crops that rely on insects for pollination are at risk (7).
The problem has compounded as agricultural methods continue to become more densely concentrated. An example of this is the high-density production of almonds in California. Over 90% of all U.S. almond production comes from three counties in California. When it is time to pollinate these crops 60% of all the bees in the U.S. are brought into this one small area of the country. All these bees in one area have lead to problems involving Colony Collapse Disorder. This syndrome occurs when a colony of bees loses over 30% of the bees in a short time. This can come from many sources including transfer of disease and parasites or simple starvation from the lack of plentiful foraging materials. Farmers bring in two or more hives per an acre of almonds to insure complete pollination over the short fertilization season. Almonds are a very early blooming crop and the almonds cover vast areas in an almost monoculture so there is little else for the bees to forage on during this time and can lead to unhealthy conditions and death of bees. There are other substantial risks to the almond growers. These risks include weather, and bee transportation across the country, which involves many logistical risks. Hive disease can mean that even if the bees are transported and the weather cooperates the bees still may not be able to move pollen adequately.
Another economic effect of CCD is that the cost of renting beehives has increased rapidly for many crops such as almonds. Beehive rentals have gone from $100 an acre to the current rate of $350 an acre in just five years (8). This problem has been exacerbated by the fact that due to increased almond demand, the number of almond acres has been increasing thus causing more demand on an increasing limited supply of bees.
Bees have additional risks outside of colony collapse disorder. Even if the bees are at the farm at the appropriate time, there is the risk that the bees will not pollinate the crops during the critical period. Some crops only have a window of two days to pollinate the crops. If the bees do not pollinate the crop during that time due to factors such as disease or poor weather conditions, yield is severely impacted (9). In a good year, the bees may only pollinate up to 10% of the blossoms. Bad weather decreases this significantly. Growers are desperately looking for ways to mitigate these pollination risks.
The bee pollination problem affects an extremely large market. In the US, bee-pollinated crops had a $15 billion value in 2012 (10). The worldwide value of bee-pollinated crops is $217 billion. Almonds, apples, cherries, plums, pears, blueberries, avocados, cantaloupes, cucumber, kiwi, and apricots are a few of the crops that use bees as a pollination method (11). The almond crop is the most affected by the current bee crisis. The almond market is composed of about 6,500 farmers that grow about 810,000 acres of almonds in California (12). The almond industry is also experiencing strong growth with demand growing at 7.3% annually (13). In 2009, the value of the almond harvest was $2.2 billion (14). In 2012, the almond industry's reached $4.1 billion (15). The number of fruit bearing acres increased from 590,000 acres in 2005 to 810,000 acres in 2012 (16).
71% of the almonds grown in California were exported in 2011/2012 (17). 35% of those exports went to Western Europe, 38% to Asia, and 17% to the Middle East (18). China was the largest destination after the United States followed by Spain, India, and Germany (19). Almonds were the most valuable specialty crop exports in the United States and in California the most valuable agricultural export. California grows 80% of the world's almonds.
A need exist for alternative and more reliable means of pollinating almonds and other crops dependent on bees. It is also desirable to find a way to replace or supplement bee pollination to reduce risk and increase profits for the farmers that have relied only on insect pollination in the past.